ATKV Natalia awful experience

My wife and I booked for AKTV for the 19/10/2018 until 22/10/2018. We have made use of AKTV natalia twice before, once with friend from Britian and once with my father. The experiences were pleasant. Unfortunately not this time. We checked in on Friday 19 October 2018 with the intention of my father of 90 been with us for two nights so that we could celebrate his 90th birthday, the 20th and 22nd. Our first night was honestly horrific. There was an odd smell in the room when we checked into it. We thought this maybe that the windows had been closed for sone time. We opened all the windows, but the bad smell increased. At 10PM that evening, the smell became unbearable and when I intended to shower I noticed that the bathroom was semi flooded with foul smelling water that was leaking from the back pipe of the toilet. My wife recently underwent a full knee replacement with a wound that is sensitive to detrimental infection and if she were to slip in this water, dire consequences to this proceedure could have resulted. I am a chronic Epileptic and a fall could of also been significantly dangerous, especialy if I were to bump my head and trigger a a serious seizure. The sickening smell rapidly increased and so did the water leak. I reported this to a genteman at the gate. They could not repair this as it was a main sewage pipe from above. we moved to the room next door as there was no other availaable or suitable. To add to our woes there was a school tour in the apartmets above with unbelievable noise levels. The appartment was also not serviced and there was black mould in the bathroom. There was still and odour eminating from the apartment next door. My fathers 90th birth day did not happen, as he could not stay with us. We were told that they are sorry but the building is old. So pleased to leave and get on our flight home. SAD SAD!

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23 Oct 2018 @ 18:08:01 pm

OOM JEEP

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This is really sad.

Did you report it at the office or the manager on duty. ??

I love camping all year round

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23 Oct 2018 @ 20:51:14 pm

Chris Boucher

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This cannot be left untouched. You have to take it up with ATKV. Only listening to one side of the story, it sounds appalling.

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24 Oct 2018 @ 06:15:16 am

Leon

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It is realy unexpected to hear something like this from a ATKV resort. You can phone the ATKV organization and even log a complaint there if you feel that you have proper grounds to it.

Old buildings is a concern but it can not be used as an excuse it only means maintenance must be done more regularly.

I am also a camper and do so as far as possible. But we undertook a short tour (9 nights) recently to the Northern Cape and the south of Namibia. It was too much travelling in a short period of time and a lot of gravel road travelling - which prevented us from towing the caravan. We slept over in self-catering accommodation. We had the most wonderful places where we stayed over - 4 x Lekkeslaap venues, 1 x Sanparks & 2 found on the internet. As a rule ATKV accommodation is also very good. Just more than a year ago we took a mid-week break to Goudini Spa and last February we stayed at Buffelspoort. In both cases we had immaculate accommodation.

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen. I've informed ATKV about this topic and they have assured me they will look into this matter from Head Office as well. Thank you for sharing. If I receive any further details, I'll let you know.

Until then, have a fabulous weekend and stay safe on the roads.

Jolene ScheepersOffice Manager

"Find a job you love, then you will never have to work again!"
The CaravanParks.com Team

My wife and I booked for AKTV for the 19/10/2018 until 22/10/2018. We have made use of AKTV natalia twice before, once with friend from Britian and once with my father. The experiences were pleasant. Unfortunately not this time. We checked in on Friday 19 October 2018 with the intention of my father of 90 been with us for two nights so that we could celebrate his 90th birthday, the 20th and 22nd. Our first night was honestly horrific. There was an odd smell in the room when we checked into it. We thought this maybe that the windows had been closed for sone time. We opened all the windows, but the bad smell increased. At 10PM that evening, the smell became unbearable and when I intended to shower I noticed that the bathroom was semi flooded with foul smelling water that was leaking from the back pipe of the toilet. My wife recently underwent a full knee replacement with a wound that is sensitive to detrimental infection and if she were to slip in this water, dire consequences to this proceedure could have resulted. I am a chronic Epileptic and a fall could of also been significantly dangerous, especialy if I were to bump my head and trigger a a serious seizure. The sickening smell rapidly increased and so did the water leak. I reported this to a genteman at the gate. They could not repair this as it was a main sewage pipe from above. we moved to the room next door as there was no other availaable or suitable. To add to our woes there was a school tour in the apartmets above with unbelievable noise levels. The appartment was also not serviced and there was black mould in the bathroom. There was still and odour eminating from the apartment next door. My fathers 90th birth day did not happen, as he could not stay with us. We were told that they are sorry but the building is old. So pleased to leave and get on our flight home. SAD SAD!

Herwith ATKV Natalia would like to confirm that the incident was handled personally with Mr Tame by the resort manager. Below is a copy of the response that was send to Mr Tame, and we hope to welcome them back at Natalia in the near future.

Good day Mr Tame,

Thank you feedback regarding your stay at ATKV Natalia. ATKV Natalia Resort strives to ensure that all our clients are treated with respect, dignity and equality irrespective of gender, race and disability. In fact we aim to walk the extra mile and exceed expectations to ensure that every stay with us is memorable.

I am disappointed and sincerely apologetic that we were unable to have given you and your family a pleasant and memorable experience here.

I do acknowledge that you are a well-traveled business man and that you have experienced accommodation on an international level, and as such would have certain expectations, regarding your accommodation. Our building is quite old and we are constantly busy with upgrades and maintenance during the course of the year to ensure such devastating incidents to happen. However in my experience some of these things we can’t predict, it is however unfortunate that the unforeseen pipe leakage happened during your visit. The weekend of the 19 October – 21 October 2018 we were fully booked and only had 1 available apartment which was not on the ground floor, so although we would have preferred to place you and your wife there, this would have made your stay a lot more uncomfortable as it would have required you and your wife to use either stairs or the elevator, and therefore before having spoken to our other clients we then gave you an apartment which was already booked out, in the hope that they would then be willing to change over, thankfully they did.

Due to miscommunication between departments, our cleaning service department was under the impression that you only moved to the new apartment on the Saturday morning and thus never came to service, however once they were corrected and the service was offered to you for the Sunday, it was sadly declined.

School groups are part of our business and do make use of our accommodation. The resort has rules and regulations which prohibit noise after a certain hour. Duty managers are there to assist after hours when clients complain about persistent noise.

Having received feedback of your stature and of this nature is very disheartening, however I do see room to improve on our service, accommodation and how we communicate with one another.I appreciate your feedback and hope that you will be willing to visit us soon, we would like to offer you a complimentary meal (including drinks) at our Kits-Koswerf restaurant for four people to use at your own discretion. Either to gift your father or use upon your next visit to Durban, we acknowledge that this does not make up for all the grief you have experienced however we hope on rebuilding the relationship between you and ATKV Natalia.